Pigeons, football…& some very strange laws
- A British soldier had to be 19 years old to fight overseas, but 250,000 underage boys fought on the front line. The youngest was Sidney Lewis, aged 12. Jack Cornwell, 16, was the youngest recipient of the Victoria Cross.
- 65 million men from 30 countries fought. At least 6,000 of those died each day. By the end of the war, nine million men had been killed in the fighting. Sixty per cent of the casualties on the Western Front came from shellfire; there were also 80,000 recorded cases of shell shock.
- Private George Edwin Ellison was the last British solider to die in the First World War.
- It only took two days for letters to reach the front line in France from the UK. By the end of the war two billion letters and 114 million parcels had been delivered; 25 million tonnes of supplies were shipped to the British forces, including three million tonnes of food, and five million tonnes of oats and hay for the horses.
- By 1918, Britain was spending £6m a day on the war. In one 24-hour period in September that year, nearly £4m worth of bullets were fired.
- During the war, both plastic surgery and blood banks were developed. Surgeon Harold Gillies pioneered the early techniques behind facial reconstruction after seeing horrific war injuries. American army doctor Captain Oswald Robertson established the first blood bank on the Western Front in 1917.
- There were also technological advances – with flamethrowers and tanks being used for the first time. British officer Edward Harrison invented the first gas mask, which saved thousands of lives. Before that, the only protection the troops had was a cloth soaked in urine.
- There were roughly 25,000 miles of trenches dug on the Western Front. Soldiers would usually spend no more than two weeks at a time in them. The average life expectancy was around six weeks, with junior officers and stretcherbearers being most at risk. German trenches tended to be superior to British ones, many having shuttered windows and even doorbells.
- Keen to get closer to the action, more than 200 generals were killed, wounded or captured on the front, but they were banned from ever going over the top.
- In 1914, none of the soldiers had metal helmets, but in 1915 the French were the first to introduce them – and Winston Churchill wore a French helmet during his time on the front in 1916.
- Despite the fact that 2,446,719 men had volunteered by 1915, conscription was needed. In 1916, all healthy 18-to-41-year-olds were called up, but 16,000 British conscientious objectors refused to fight.
- Food shortages in 1917 saw people being banned from feeding pigeons and throwing rice at weddings. They were also prohibited from talking on the phone in a foreign language and buying binoculars.
- German radio messages were intercepted at the Eiffel Tower, which led to the execution of the German spy, Mata Hari.
- Millions of animals were used during the war, including 100,000 homing pigeons and 870,000 horses. One pigeon, named Cher Ami, saved 200 US soldiers who had been cut off, by delivering a message to rescuers, despite suffering from a bullet injury. Around 20,000 dogs served as messengers and helped to lay telegraph wires; terriers hunted rats.
- During an unofficial truce at Christmas 1914 in Belgium, German and British soldiers played a game of football in no man’s land. The score was 3-2 to Germany.
- The morning of the Battle of the Somme saw the British suffer 60,000 casualties. It remains the worst toll for a single day in Britain’s history. During the battle, Allied forces were able to advance six miles.
- Some of the famous people to serve included AA Milne, JRR Tolkien and Henry Moore. Wilfred Owen detailed the full horror of war but it wasn’t until the 1960s that his accounts were recognised as the most accurate view of the conflict.